Implications of Taking Receipt: The New Creation

Continuing on the subject of Taking Receipt of having been born again, is also understanding the need to take receipt of having become a new creation.  It's been the same for me in this area as it had been in the former: knowing it was true, but not taking full ownership in a deeply personal way.  Kind of makes that old saying about someone wanting to have their cake and eat it, too, sound so foolish!  It always irritated me to hear someone say that.  Why wouldn't a person want to eat their cake, when in fact that is the purpose of having the cake in the first place? Owning the cake, seeing how delicious it looks, smelling the  aroma, anticipating having that first bite, then another.... this is receiving the cake on a deeply personal level.  If you have it and never taste it,  boy, what a loss!   It's the same thing in whether or not we lay hold of and enjoy the truth concerning the benefits of having become a new creation.

Psalm 34:8-9  (this so fits here):

8 O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.9 O fear the Lord, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him.         (The whole Psalm is really good. To read it, click here. You might want to check out The Message version, too, if you go to the site, it's great!)

 So how do we take receipt and taste His Goodness in a practical way?  We start by receiving it by faith just because God said it.  It is only the beginning, but in every adventure we have to start  somewhere, and since faith is the currency of heaven, that's how we begin to exchange what we have for what He says we can have-actually what He's already provided. We've just been so limited by our own humanity-by generational issues, sorrow, loss, lack, pain, sickness-by what we've experienced in this life that's so contrary to what His desire for us is.  Our mind really does need to be renewed to who He made us to be in the new creation we became when we first invited Him into our hearts.  Our spirit man really was born again, translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light in Christ Jesus in that transaction we made with Him in by faith!

It is so.  Now our minds need to be renewed to the language of the new kingdom we've been translated into.  If we moved to another country here on earth, we'd need to learn the native language in order to be prosperous there.  It's no different in this instance.  God says His thoughts and His ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9) and we need to learn and understand His language.  He's not only given us His written Word, He's given His Spirit to teach us  (John 14:26) that new way of speaking and thinking.

There's so much more that could be said about this, but the most important thing is personally coming into agreement with what God brought to pass in us when we received Him.  Knowing that the old man really died and was done away with at the cross of Jesus and when we accepted Him that benefit was added to us-the old is gone, the new has come and receiving this basic truth, tasting it, enjoying it will begin to transform us as we go.  Yes, and it is simply because God says it, we agree with it and are transformed by it because the Word of God has the power in it to bring itself to pass.  What a wonderful truth to rest in!  

And I can tell you this, even when we don't feel or see any changes, and we continue- just believing the truth no matter what-one day we will become aware that there has been change, and not because we were striving to bring it to pass.   It's called GRACE!  Woohoo!  This really makes me excited because most of my life I was a striver.  I was going to get the job done somehow no matter what it took.  My motto had been,  just let me rest a little and regain a little strength and stamina and I'll be ready to jump back in and "get 'er done."  That's country folk's talk for, "completing the task at hand. "  


This journey of discovery and change,  healing and rest isn't always easy,  but the benefits far outweigh the difficulty.  I can attest to the fact that receiving His way of seeing and doing is so much better than anything we could come up with on our own!  I'll end this with one of my all time favorite verses since I discovered how it reads in The Message...and I've used it a number of times in this blog, but you can't get too much of a good, calorie-free taste of Goodness!  So here it is:

Matthew 11:27-30The Message (MSG)

27 Jesus resumed talking to the people, but now tenderly. “The Father has given me all these things to do and say. This is a unique Father-Son operation, coming out of Father and Son intimacies and knowledge. No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does. But I’m not keeping it to myself; I’m ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen.

28-30 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (my emphasis)

Taking Receipt....

I'm interested in pursuing the topic of Jesus restoring oneness even as the Father, Son and Spirit are One though three distinct entities if you will.   We also were created in three parts--spirit, soul and body.   I wrote in an earlier post concerning man's creation where God breathed in Adam the breath of life, which in the Hebrew the word for breath is in the plural form. Therefore it would be rendered more correctly "the breath of lives".  It is very interesting indeed!  I shared this information more clearly in the post Three Lives? Revisited  (scroll down to) March 22, 2014. 

Since Jesus came to "destroy the works of the devil" (I John 3:8)  it stands to reason that our individual need to be restored to oneness within ourselves would necessarily be of great import since man was created to live in perfect unity within himself and with God.

Until Ish and Isha-Hebrew for man and the one taken from his side-listened to another and followed him there was no schism anywhere. What a disaster that was!  Their oneness with God, creation and within was totally disrupted and they found themselves absolutely naked within and without and were barred from the Garden.  And by the way, that's when Adam changed Isha's name to Eve (Genesis 3:20).  He first called her, simply, Woman in Genesis 2:23.  

And here's an interesting bit of information: The reason they didn't know they were naked was because they weren't!  They were clothed with God's Glory-spiritual clothing for the spiritual beings they were created to be-the same clothing as God.  They became naked when they lost their oneness with their Father, losing the Glory that was naturally theirs as sons of God.  These two immortal spirits were now clothed only with fallen, naked flesh as everyone thereafter. 

Since God gave man authority under His LORDship to rule over the earth, only a man could get back what the enemy stole.  That's why Jesus came, and indeed as I mentioned earlier, He came to (utterly) destroy the works of the devil.  And He did accomplish that thoroughly.  This takes me back to the subject I want to share more about: since Jesus did all this, and we know it's true, why are we NOT walking in more of the wholeness, power and authority He died to restore to us while satisfying  the Father's heart, will and desire for us, His children, the Church.  Afterall the word church  in the Greek means called out ones, a governing body!  Sounds like He even restored what Adam and Eve lost concerning authority doesn't it?

Though we are seeing  greater numbers of people and ministries than ever before operating on a higher level of  spiritual maturity and authority, it is not so for the Church at large.  Many of us are just not satisfied at our seeming inability to break through issues we've been believing and trusting for, and perhaps struggling with for quite some time.  It has been an enigma, a many faceted enigma, but God is revealing more in this day and hour than ever before about such mysteries and exposing enemy tactics formed to hinder us from our high calling in Christ Jesus.  I've been one of those who seems to have been stalemated in a number of areas, and I'd like to share what God showed me about the main issue which caused me to still have some issues with them.

My mother would occasionally use an expression in calling out an individual by name saying something like, "Sally was slow, but she was old."  That gave Sally an excuse for being slow, but there was none  for a healthy younger person with plenty of energy to perform the task at hand.  The church is older, and we've been slow for a number of reasons, but it's time to get our youth restored and move up into our high places. My Goodness,  don't we all want to go there and remain!? 

This recent revelation, I believe, is one  the Church at large also has to receive in order to make a huge breakthrough into greater maturity, oneness and as overcomers who walk in the victory He provided for us.  

At this point, I'd like to share a little about the difference between revelation and information, because it was information that kept me from a personal working knowledge of a great basic truth.  It's not that I or most Christians don't have some knowledge of this particular truth and accept it as a fact, but often this knowledge has to become much more greatly received and understood on a personal level.  Simply put, information is a head knowledge of a truth while revelation is a heart knowledge of it-with the heart being the same as the spirit.   The following verse points to what I'm speaking about here.

1 Corinthians 2:11-12(KJV)

11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

As does the following:

          Hebrews 4:12-13(KJV)

12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

God knows how much true understanding we have, and as we continue to look to Him for the answers we need, He is faithful to show us in what area we need greater understanding.  So it is when He "opens" an area we are enabled to see it as we never have before.   This is revelation.  It starts with our spirit and then affects our understanding....it's not just information any longer, but truth which develops in us as we receive it and allow it to work in our lives.

This is part of the process of being restored to our individual oneness with Him as He teaches us to see and receive His truth--His way of seeing and understanding.   This is so amazing to me!  I'm hardly ever greatly surprised any longer when He shows me an area where my understanding has been so limited by my humanity...but I'm always thankful and truly amazed and humbled. 

So what did the Spirit open up to me that changed everything?  He said I needed to  "Take receipt of having been born again."  Oh my,  when He said it to me,  the Light came on and I understood!  I had no idea of how much being born again had been a general truth to me.  I agreed with the Word that it was so, but had never fully laid hold of it on a deep personal level.  

I hope to share more about the reality of it in later entries,  but you don't have to wait if you haven't fully "taken receipt" yourself.   God is right there where you are, and He's ready!  He'll begin to open up your understanding in a greater way even as He did when He joined the two on the road to Emmaus!  (Luke 24:13-35)  Just ask Him and see for yourself!